Hell Is
by Valkyrien
Summary: Val and Ravus were only a very small part of the incidents spoken of in Ironside. Their story isn't over.
1. Chapter 1

_DISCLAIMER: I do not own any part of The Modern Faerie Tales, and I likely never will. I just read, appreciate, and dream just like the rest of us. All Hail Holly Black._

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_Hell Is..._

It really wasn't until she returned to her life after being given the sword that evening by her personal faerie prince – or as close to one as she was getting or wanted to get – that she began to feel it.

It wasn't like the slow, throbbing burn that had gradually overtaken her mouth and made her wish for ice and water to try and rid herself of the searing hurt that had been his way of bringing her back and forcing her to honour her promise so long ago when they had first met.

It wasn't the bewildered, half-angry, part-confused pain of her mother's betrayal, an odd sensation of latent rage and tears just beneath her skin, burning at her eyes, pounding inside her head whenever she tried to make sense of it.

It wasn't like the pain she'd known as Greyan had slammed shining sickles into her mortal flesh and she had crumpled like a wet paper bag and woken up to things she barely knew in her delirium, just wanting it to _stop burning_.

It wasn't the bruised annoyance of lacrosse injuries or the sting of skinned knees and split lips.

It wasn't the vein-writhing dry-mouthed heart-pounding skin-searing pain of withdrawal, her whole body betraying what her mind knew she should want, making her prep the needle and make the amber sand of Never one with it so that she could evade the pain until the next time she woke up.

It wasn't the distant, foreign discomfort of her mother's glances, hesitant questions, timid inquiries into a life that she was no longer truly part of anymore.

It was apathy. It was life moving along so slowly and so horribly monotonously that she felt like screaming to make things go faster. It was the way her feet seemed so much slower then her mind, like images seen in a fevered dream, frightening but harmless. It was heated skin, inability to breathe, anger at those around her for existing when they were so inconsequential. It was choking whenever she caught a glimpse of dark hair or gold, saw someone tall in the distance, on the street. It was the smell of cold and damp and lavender that stung at her eyes and made them well up while her chest constricted until she felt she wanted to curl up in a corner and just sleep. It was the awful sensation that when she woke, she was too alone, and that when she trained she was missing something vital. Most of all it was the feeling that there was a gaping, rotting hole in her breast where her heart ought to be, and that thought made the feeling so much worse as she curled her fingers into hands that knew what a heart felt like.

It was dying. She was certain that it was dying. She couldn't imagine anything like it and since she'd tried more variations of pain than she cared to recall, she could only assume that this was dying an achingly slow, completely unfair death. It was only comparable to addiction in the sense that small things – a crow wheeling overhead, the sight of her team-mates' scandalised glances at her naked back, the livid scars that criscrossed her pale skin scratching against her clothing like a reminder that she hadn't dreamt it all – made the pain go away for a moment, just as another hit made the pain of coming down lessen. And that was what she needed. A hit.

* * *

She didn't really notice her mother's dressing-gown clad form hovering in her doorway as she threw things into her duffel bag, her carefully-wrapped sword strapped to her back over her black wool coat. She was fixed on gettting this over with so that she could leave as soon as possible, and her mother was just another obstacle on her wy as she closed her bag and tried to push past her to leave.

"Val, where are you going?" the waver in her mother's voice irritated her, and she gave her a hard look.

"None of your business," she replied, keeping her tone level, hoping that this could be dealt with without hysterics. She had a train to catch.

"Are – are you going to see Ruth?" her mother asked, hopeful and afraid, her daughter's steely eyes and concave cheeks and shorn hair still as alien to her as they had been the night she had returned and she almost hadn't known her child at all, something she was still ashamed to admit to herself.

"Maybe. I'll be gone a while." The unhelpful answer caused Val's mother a moment of panic and she clutched her daughter's arm.

"You can't go away again, honey – you said you wouldn't – "

"Let go of me," Val spat, wrenching her arm out of the older woman's weak, grasping hands, the once perfectly-manicured nails ragged and chipping.

"Val, baby please – " her mother called after her as Val pushed past her and left, the door slamming behind her.

* * *

The train ride wasn't quite the race of time her last had been, nothing ocurring other than what she thought was a glimpse of Lolli but turned out to be someone in a blue-feathered hat, and her thoughts strayed to Dave and Luis, hidden away in an Upper East Side dump, Luis breaking curses and enchantments put onto unsuspecting humans by creatures much like the one she was on her way to see.

Noone asked about her sword this time, perhaps assuming it was something else since it was swaddled in so much cloth it was difficult to tell much other than the long shape of it at a glance. The hard backbone it provided as she sat there, absorbed in her count down of the minutes until she would be within reaching distance of her goal, comforted her. She wondered if the iron she was bringing into the city made a difference to the fey who had made it their home in their utmost end of need, but it had been brought to her by just such a faerie, and so she couldn't see that it should matter. After a thousand needles, the one-thousandth mattered little.

She trudged through platforms she remembered waking up in, past shops and storefronts she had robbed from or demolished or simply altered, her veins filled to overflowing with stolen power, and she felt detached from it all as though it had been some foolish daydream, easily dismissed and unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

Her bag cut into her shoulder but it didn't make a difference to the overwhelming sense of stupidity welling up in her as she made ready to enter the place she'd been brought to after her attack on an ogre, the place where she had sparred with a monster who was, after all, nothing like as monstrous as humans – the place she had thought would be his tomb. Steadying herself, she took the last few steps of her journey towards salvation –

and was grabbed around the waist by what looked a lot like an elf, with long, wine-coloured hair and a surprised expression on his face as he started to form the words,

"A _human..?_" He didn't quite finish what he was saying though, for she slammed her head into his face and he reeled back, clutching at his mouth, red running between his fingers, eyes flashing at her in astonished anger. She smiled at him, took a one-step run-up and slammed her booted foot upwards between his legs, elbow catching him on the jaw as he went down with a harsh cry, trying to catch her leg as she jumped over him and ran to what she hoped would not be the scene from her nightmares.

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The salt-haired King of the Unseelie Court rose from his seat opposite the unglamoured troll, hand on the hilt of his sword as Val pushed the curtain aside and entered the room, her eyes wide as she took them in.

"Val..?" Ravus looked completely disoriented by her sudden appearance, and then, as she was drowning in his golden gaze, feeling completely helpless to understand he situation, the faerie she'd left gasping outside entering as well, reaching for her arm and spitting rather than saying,

"I apologise, my Lord, I could not hold her, she – " Roiben just held up his hand, turning to Ravus, who composed himself quickly and said,

"Mabry's killer, my Lord," by way of introducing her. The King looked at his knight, then at Val, who was also looking at his knight, albeit murderously.

"Leave her, Ellebere. She may stay," he said quietly, adding,

"I do not doubt that she overcame you. There is little dishonour in being bested by a human such as her." The look on Ellebere's bloodied face seemed to suggest otherwise, but he bowed his head and left, presumably to resume guarding the entrance to Ravus' home.

"Ka – my consort – " Roiben began, hastily amending his speech where he had been wanting to say someone's name, Val was certain, continuing,

"- was impressed by your valour, faerie-killer. As were we all. You have your own place in this council." Val narrowed her eyes at him, remembering the blood on Luis' face where his piercings had been torn from his flesh, the way this _king_ had sat there on his throne, pretty as you please, as she attempted to prove Mabry's guilt through trial of combat just like in a medieval play and win back Ravus' heart from the gore-happy bitch. Ravus, who was looking at her as though he wished she wasn't there. As though he would give anything for her to be somewhere else, somewhere far, far away from him at that moment.

To mask the pang she felt at that realisation, she hardened her features and crossed her arms.

"What kind of council are we talking here?" she asked roughly, certain that otherwise her voice would betray her, crack with the onslaught of tears as she avoided the golden eyes she had come here specifically to stare into for indefinite periods of time.

"War," the King said simply.

"I am here to ask Ravus ' aid in defeating Silarial so that the solitary fey may exist without the fear of the Courts, the Courts may exist without fear of one another, and all of us may rest easy in the knowledge that there is one less evil in this world." His voice and eyes were just as hard as hers, and she thought she saw a loss in them that she couldn't quite define.

"You want him to help you kill _another_ psycho faery bitch?" she asked bluntly, and he laughed suddenly, the change in his face making him lovelier than he already was. It died into what appeared to be the slightest breath of sadness flitting across the inhumanly beautiful features, silver eyes for a split second so empty that she felt sorry for him.

"I had almost forgotten..." he murmured, before shaking off the melancholy and his eyes became as hard as the steel they resembled.

"I do not merely wish her dead. I wish her erased from existance and my people liberated from her hatred and malice for the rest of our eternity. For that, I shall need the aid of the solitary fey. That is why I am here." Val nodded curtly.

"Your guys must be in some serious shit to come looking for help here," she said coldly, and he smiled.

"Just as you say. Ravus has promised me his allegiance in the upcoming battle." Val let her gaze fall on the troll she had been ignoring so far, her breath coming out in an agonised little puff that sounded a lot like _'no'_.

"You can't – you can't be serious?" she asked, voice rising more than she had intended, and he looked at her steadily.

"I can, and I am. Lord Roiben shall have my aid in this fight. It has been decided." His deep, even voice cut where it should have washed over her as gently as the scent of mulled wine and hot water after a hard day's training.

"Were you going to tell me about this?" she asked quietly, shaking although thankfully, her voice did not. He closed his eyes as though exhausted.

"Yes."

The Unseelie King was watching Val with a grave look that almost made her think that he knew what she was feeling. She didn't care. The finer feelings of some faerie king were nothing to her in the face of this.

"Did you know this was coming?" she asked, voice slightly less steady, and he looked at her sadly.

"Yes." She smiled shallowly, nodded, looked at Roiben again, saying,

"If you don't mind, I would like to have a minute here, if you're done." He nodded, inclining his head in her direction, looking back at Ravus – who bowed in much the same manner as Ellebere – and then murmuring an almost apologetic,

"I wish that it were not so, for all our sakes," and leaving with a sweeping of his long black coat the added to the chill that was creeping into Val's limbs. Ravus didn't speak as she looked around her at the room where he had nearly died, where he had held her, lying on the floor that night as he told her that his heart was hers as surely as if she had it as a keepsake in the box inside which she had brought it back.

The heart some Bright Court monster was going to run through in this upcoming battle for the Bitch Queen's title.

"Val... Can you not even bear to look at me?" he asked, sounding tormented beyond words, and she raised tear-filled eyes to meet his.

"I thought it was over..." she said brokenly, and before she knew it she was enveloped in the strong, real arms of the fantasy she had relied upon to bring her through her solitude in the time apart, drowning in the scent of him, clinging to his coat with all the fervour of a lover who has long missed her beloved, but for the wrong reason.

This was not a beginning, after all...


	2. Chapter 2

_**DISCLAIMER: AS USUAL, THE CHARACTERS AREN'T MINE, I'M JUST BORROWING THEM FROM HOLLY BLACK WHO IS MARVELLOUS AND MAGNIFICENT.**_

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_Hell Is..._

He hadn't actually wanted her to know about any of it. Not that he had lied, of course, he couldn't. That wasn't it at all. No, he had simply intended to inform her after the fact unless of course she found out about it before then. As she had. And his initial plan to let her know after the outcome of the battle itself, after the war had been won, was starting to look like it would have been infinitely preferable to this.

Not only was it a nightmare in itself that she had beaten her way through the King's personal guard – although as Roiben had said, she wasn't exactly an ordinary human – the clear betrayal on her face as it dawned on her that they were facing yet another threat to their way of life pained him immensely. This new war, the new threat, none of it came as a surprise to Ravus. He had long foreseen that the Bright Lady was not quite so pure as she might think it prudent to make out, and that she should mount so vicious an attack on the Unseelie Court was more than feasible. He felt oddly guilty that he had not come forth to tell the new King of his suspicions that all was not right in the Seelie lands, but after Val and he had reached their shaky new understanding and Luis and Dave had gone into hiding he had seen no reason to involve himself in Court politics or even seek an end to his exile. To his mind, that life was now over, and he sought no renewal of his courtly ties. In fact, all he wanted was to be a part of Val's life, and now he was beginning to feel he might have jeopardised that.

Holding her, he could almost dare hope that she would not be truly angry, that she would be able to forgive him and understand why he needed to be a part of this. Almost, he had come to realise, was never quite enough.

She drew back with a jerk, wiping her eyes roughly, and stepped out of his arms to stand there, silent, eyes accusing him of things he knew he was quite guilty of. The lack of shouting unnerved him, and he felt compelled to act.

"Val..." he reached out to her, but she took a step back and crossed her arms more tightly around herself.

"Don't touch me," she said coldly, and he felt a sharp pang lance through his chest, somehow a much deeper pain than even having his heart removed had been.

"How could you keep this from me?" she asked, and he spread his hands helplessly, the reasons he had been so sure of suddenly seeming inadequate, unworthy of even mentioning as reasons at all.

"I wanted to... I was going to tell you afterwards," he heard himself say, feeling strangely separate from his words, too intent on watching her and the pain that seemed more visible to him now than when she had been crying. Val crying was unreal, as though it wasn't really her reaction at all, but this steely, cold hurt she exuded now filled him with a sense of utter failure and frightened him at the same time.

"After? What if there was no after? What if you died or your side just didn't win? How would I have found out?" There were far too many questions to answer there, and far too many that he had not considered himself. The knowledge that he had had no real plan if things had not gone well was not comforting.

"You would have been told," he said quietly, holding back a wince as she scoffed.

"Oh, really? By who? You can't expect me to believe that any of them would give a rat's ass about the humans affected by all of this! I've seen the way they treat us. I don't believe for a second any of them would bother to come and let me know you'd died for their cause."

He had to admit that there was a large amount of truth to that statement. He knew of few faeries who had human consorts or were truly emotionally attached to any human for any reason, and those that were usually did not publicise the fact. It wasn't considered proper to become involved with a human in such a manner. Humans were a necessary evil, and sometimes nothing but idle sport to the Folk. He couldn't refute that it was unlikely any of them would care to notify Val should he die in battle.

"I would have made arrangements... You would have been told." Even as he said it he couldn't really deny that he would have balked at the thought of not returning to her. Perhaps even to the point of not ensuring that she would be told in case he was unable to. He hadn't any idea as to how he would have let her know should the worst happen. It was not the kind of news one could send in a letter, no matter what bird one chose as the courier. She appeared to know this better than he did.

"So you would have just had someone or something send me a note to let me know I'd never be seeing you again but thanks for everything? At least army wives get a flag and a visit from people their husbands knew to break it to them. And what's the alternative? Not letting me know! So I'd just assume I'd been dumped and you'd moved to get rid of me."

"I would never do such a thing!" he protested, voice rising at the thought of abandoning her in such a callous manner – at abandoning her at all.

"But that's exactly what you would have done if you'd gone off somewhere to die in their stupid war without telling me! It's the same thing!" She was shouting now, but it wasn't any better than the harsh coolness of before just because it was familiar. It hurt just as much because she was right.

"Val... I am sorry. I cannot defend what I would have done, but now that you know, can you not see that I have to be a part of this?" he heard the note of pleading in his tone. It was fitting that it remain there, he felt. He owed her too much to do her such a discourtesy as he would have done had she not found out. To leave her.

"Why do you have to go? What, they can't start a war without you? I don't see how any of this is your problem. You don't owe them anything anymore. That Roiben guy was not exactly helpful when I went to get your – "

She caught herself before she could complete the sentence. She didn't like talking about that any more than he did. He knew it frightened her to think that she had almost been too late. For all her strength and valour, she was so afraid to lose those whom she cared for, and he was one of those favoured few. At least, he had been. He couldn't be certain that this was not going to change that.

"I mean, he probably has responsibilities to his people and all that but he just sat there on his stupid throne while I – and you saw Luis' face – " she appeared to be unable to express the level of emotion she was experiencing and her voice was choked. He wanted her to be happy again so badly that he felt ill with it.

"He did not give permission for either of you to be harmed, Val. The Folk may have little love for humans, but the King is different. His own consort is evidence of that," he said gently, willing her to calm herself, to see that he had to go. She looked away briefly and then back up at him, defiant and angry.

"What, the green girl I saw him with back then? She looked pretty fae to me. Wings and everything."

"She was raised a human, a changeling. She was to be the victim of the Tithe, a sacrifice made to keep the solitary fey bound to the will of the Courts. It was for that purpose that Roiben killed Nicnevin, the former Queen of the Night Court – to save Kaye's life. The puppet king, Nephamael, Kaye slew unaided, to give Roiben his freedom. It won him the throne. And now, Silarial wants it for herself." Val's eyes narrowed.

"She was the one pulling Mabry's strings." He nodded, reached out to her again. This time she did not pull away.

"She launched an attack on the Night Court, her army consisting mainly of glamoured humans, with her own knights sent in once the worst of the damage was done to pick off the injured and the helpless. Many were killed." He let his fingers brush her cheek, and she closed her eyes and took a deep, hitching breath.

"You want to fight for Roiben to bring her down, don't you? Whatever I say, you'll still go. It's your fight..." her voice was steady, although quiet, but he could feel her tremble.

"Val... if I could spare you this pain, I would. I tried to once before, and I failed. Will you not give me your favour in this? I have no desire to go to war with this rift between us..." He was pleading in earnest now, unable to contemplate a victory if she did not give it her blessing. How could he keep his wits in battle knowing that that which he held dearest of all did not support his going in the first place?

"I..." she looked up at him and met his gaze with a sort of terrible hopelessness in her eyes.

"I can't..."

"You can't..?" She clasped at his wrist and shook her head, clearly trying to articulate what she was feeling correctly and falling short of her own wishes.

"I thought – when she lied to you and told you I didn't mean it before, when I was stealing from you and you were so angry – I thought I had lost you then and I didn't even really know what I wanted with you – I liked you, but I just wasn't sure – "

That sounded right. He had been doubtful of his own true intentions towards her for quite some time before the night in the park, when finding her under the partial spell of another faerie had caused his anger to flare white-hot and had forced his hand despite his best efforts at self control. He recalled the events in crystalline clarity; how he had loomed over the other faery, frightening and furious with it, with himself for not guarding her more carefully, with her for allowing herself to be caught up in the glamour of fey whom she could not trust. He had taken hold of her more out of impetuous anger than anything else and asked her to break free on an impulse, covering his own emotions with the mask of tutor and dubious ally he had somehow attained where she was concerned.

He had been shocked and partially horrified both at the way she had chosen to escape his hold and at his own reaction to it. He could allow himself the admission now that he had been taken with her, intrigued by her, from the very start, but he could also admit to himself that he had been unsure of whether his interest in her lay in his own loneliness, the strange attraction of her unusual character, or something far baser. And for that reason he had denied it fiercely, on the occasions where it came to the fore fighting it down again until he could almost pretend that it was nothing, that he was just being foolish. But it became harder to do so, harder to refrain from noticing her lack of colour, how thin she was getting, harder not to really care...

He had been truthful when he had told her he had not wanted her to see that he desired her. He had thought in turns that he wished to keep the knowledge from her out of a sense of propriety, or a wish to keep her from being important to him in any way. He had even told himself that he didn't really want her at all, that it was simply the novelty of sharing anything remotely intimate with another that drew him to her. But in a weird, perverse twisting of faery truths, he had been lying to himself by believing in these, his own falsehoods. He had yet to fathom how that was even possible, but in his darkest moments he felt it fitting that those who could lie to no one could so easily bend their own realities to suit their private purposes, and what could be more perfect a joke than that?

He recalled her kiss in minute detail. And it was nothing to do with the ever-present scholar in him that had seen him cataloguing each and every sensation for future reference. It was, however, everything to do with what he had realised in that moment. That he wanted her more than he had ever wanted anything in all his life – and that he wanted her completely. It had terrified him. His hopes now in the calloused hands of a human knight hiding within the shell of a girl she had become.

Her strange reasons for wanting him in return had both surprised him and made him want to fall at her feet and pray that they be true, and when Mabry had shattered the ideal of her he had held and caused him to believe that all she had wanted from him was what she had been taking from him without his knowledge, he had truly understood what it meant to hate. He had hated himself, for causing Tamson's death and with it Mabry's pain, but he had in a way always understood that he had not been wholly to blame, that he could not have prevented the accident. He had not been the one to remove the enchantments from Tamson's armour. But in that moment, he had hated Val. It was only the very last shred of his own beliefs that kept him from harming her, the agony of thinking she had deceived him drowning out anything else.

He understood Val's inability to properly express her feelings regarding everything that had befallen them. He understood perfectly...

"When you thought I'd been lying to you and you – I didn't know how to explain it and you didn't know and that was all my fault – " he caught her hands in his and held them tightly.

"It was not your fault. You were not to blame. I should have believed your word over that of someone who owed me naught but pain and yet my lack of trust in both you and myself led me almost to my own death." He looked at their joined hands and smiled bitterly.

"When she came to me and told me that her final pleasure had come in causing me to shun the one thing that brought me joy, I realised what a fool I had been. I was despairing and it was easy for Greyan to catch me off guard. Perhaps I too wished to die but did not fully know it..." Her knuckles whitened impossibly as her fingers twisted around his. The pressure of the touch was hardly enough for him to be satisfied with.

"I am not going to let anything happen to you again," she said, her tone final and hard.

"I'm supposed to die before you – mortal, remember? I'm not supposed to be holding my breath." The private joke, the way the words were so intimate, so much a part of them, were real in a way few things truly were in this world, faeries or no. That she said them with a half-smile he knew she didn't really mean made them even more so. He gently extricated his hands from hers and embraced her, looking down at her as she fitted herself to him and rested her own hands on his chest, awaiting his reply.

"I would never ask that of you..." he said softly, wishing that he could somehow undo everything, make it so that she would not have to worry for him.

"I would... I would loose you from any obligations to me if you cannot accept this decision..." Even saying it felt wrong. He had no wish to do any such thing. The last thing he wanted was to be separated from her for any reason. They had had so little time together and there was so little left to them...

"You are everything to me, Val. I can deny you nothing, I cannot bear for you to be so unhappy. I wish only to spend every moment I have with you, but if Roiben loses to Silarial, we may have precious few moments left..." She lowered her eyes.

"You're saying you don't want to see me until all of this is done because you don't want me to be worried about you?"

"I am saying that I will do whatever you ask of me with the one exception of reneging on my promise to Lord Roiben," he said heavily, and she looked up at him again, the fiery will he loved so dearly in her obvious in her gaze.

"That's not going to work for me. There's no way you're cutting me off until all this is over. I'll worry twice as much."

"Then tell me what you wish me to do." She smiled sadly.

"I want you to stay with me... In fact, I want to stay with you. Literally."

He couldn't quite fight the slight blush that rose up in his cheeks and his eyes flitted to where her bag and the wrapped sword lay on the floor.

"I... you want to stay here? But your mother – "

"I don't want to talk about her. Ruth knows how to reach me, I've got my phone. I just... I don't want to be around them right now. That's why I came. I want to stay with you. Is that okay?"

He honestly had no answer despite the numerous replies chasing each other around in his head. Apart from her recuperation after that encounter with Greyan's sickles so long ago, she had never spent a full night with him in his home. Unless of course you counted the night of Mabry's death and his declaration to Val. She had spent that night lying beside him, in his arms. But if the time during which she was recovering from her injury did not count, and the kisses they had shared in the park seemed hardly to count either, tainted as they were by the bitterness of that eve, every moment they had spent together as yet could be condensed into meaninglessness in the face of what she was asking of him. She had left on the morning after giving him back his heart, and then only after kissing him once and asking him to write to her. He had, and she had replied, and he had gone to her to present her with the sword, and she had stolen another few kisses from him, and he had stolen them back, but since then there had been no real communication between them. How to react to her wish to stay with him indefinitely he just did not know.

"If you don't want me here I'll go and stay with Luis and Dave, it's fine," she mumbled, suddenly sounding as though it mattered not at all, but her expression giving away that it mattered deeply.

"I just thought it would be nicer to crash with you for a while... I mean, we haven't really... We don't really get to see each other a lot, and – "

"I would be delighted to have you stay with me, Val." His voice was soft and her smile caused him to smile as well, feeling a relieved, warm sensation spread through him as she put her arms around him and said,

"Thank you. I promise to be a good houseguest." He let his hands rest on her hips and the smile entered his voice.

"As long as you are you, I will always be satisfied..."


End file.
